Merry Christmas
by Rose Black
Summary: “I mean, McDougal’s no Gryffindor, but if you’re going to go out with some fluff-head girl who’s not a Slytherin, at least pick one with some looks.” PG for use of a prohibited potion. BlaiseMorag


**Merry Christmas**

Disclaimer: Of course I don't own these characters. Any of them. Really; Morag and Blaise were mentioned in the Sorting. And if I were Jo, they would be in the books a lot more.

Explanation: I played Morag in an RPG (until I got so busy I had to drop it), and I really liked the personality I came up with for her. She was the first RPG character I've ever had. I've been reading a fic with a lot of Blaise in it, and I liked him, too. I sort of niced him up for my story, though, because his original inspiration would never have hit it off with Morag, and she wouldn't have put up with him.

"Go away," said Blaise.

"All I'm saying is that you ought to show a bit of breeding, Blaise," said Draco. "I mean, McDougal's no Gryffindor, but if you're going to go out with some fluff-head girl who's not a Slytherin, at least pick one with some looks."

"Go away." His library book was due back tomorrow, and Blaise still needed to take some more notes on the last chapter for his Potions essay.

"He's right, you know," said Pansy, draped on Draco's arm, as usual. Blaise thought that her sneer was really becoming unfortunate.

As Draco gave Blaise a look to remind him that girls without looks were still useful, especially when they agreed with you, Millicent rumbled over to give her two knuts. "She's not even a really smart Ravenclaw. She reads Muggle books all the time." Blaise wondered if Millicent could even read, and, if she couldn't, (as was most likely, given the number of students she bullied into doing her homework for her) how she knew what sort of books Morag was reading.

Blaise shut his book. They were really getting annoying. Just this week alone Draco had taken him aside six times- probably thought he was being fatherly, or at least older brotherly, though Blaise was two months older than Draco- to give Blaise advice about Morag. The advice had mostly boiled down to, "Get rid of her."

Blaise didn't quite know why he was going out with her in the first place, or how it had started. She wasn't as pretty as Daphne, and she didn't have that Slytherin sharpness. But she was definitely better-looking than Pansy, with an air of being happy with how she looked, and it was good having a girlfriend who didn't constantly analyze everything he said to see if there were any way to subtly shift power in the relationship. And she- she was nice and bubbly and fairly sweet, really. Sort of like a kitten. Not that he would ever tell her this, of course.

But his housemates were really getting out of hand. Draco kept puffing himself up, thinking he was the Divine Leader of Slytherin House and giving bad advice. Theodore kept himself in the background, but had told Blaise once that it might be better for everyone, on all counts, if he and Morag would just break it off. Two days ago, while studying for Potions in the library, Morag had confided in him that Millicent and Pansy had cornered her in the corridors between classes and threatened her with unspecified harm if she kept on "bringing dishonor to Slytherin House, you horrible little nit."

"Those two bring dishonor on it just by having been Sorted in," Blaise had said easily, and reassured her. "Don't worry about them. Millicent won't do anything around a teacher or Prefect, and I'm sure you could take Pansy on in a fight." Morag had giggled, and the subject changed to the uses of bezoars in antidotes for certain deadly poisons.

But Blaise was not so sure that they were that harmless; the Slytherins could get permission to root around in the Restricted Section from Professor Snape without much difficulty. It would be horribly unfair for Morag to get hurt just because she was dating him. So he would need to do something to show that he was not taking these threats and bits of "advice" lying down.

&&&&

This toilet really was ideal, Blaise decided, for making potions. That pathetic ghost had finally stopped moaning at him, and nobody ever came in. Which was a good thing, as he would definitely get in a lot of trouble for being there, and especially for being there making that potion.

Morag had said that it was all fine, the Slytherin girls didn't do anything to her worse than occasionally whispering about her and giggling in the halls. But Blaise watched her closely and even employed a few very difficult watch-spells- he had told Professor Snape that he needed access to the Restricted Section to look for a book on advanced epistemology and another on deontology (and he did, in fact, sign out and read several books on the subjects), and incidentally signed out a few books on watch and guard spells. It had been a bit difficult, as the most effective needed a few modifications so that any of Morag's activities inside a toilet or her dormitory would not be monitored; she'd be angry enough that he was spying on her, he didn't need her to go mad over his possibly seeing her on the loo. Perhaps he should look into something for the toilets, though, just in case Millicent cornered her there, he mused at one point.

After setting up the mirror in a corner- and obtaining one of the family's invisibility cloaks to keep the mirror hidden- he drew a protective circle around the whole thing and set up a Forget Me Now charm to keep anyone who mistakenly wandered into the toilet from mistakenly wandering into his handiwork. If, that is, they didn't back out right away when confronted with Miserable Mildred, or whatever her name was.

It took a bit of time to find a charm to connect the spelled mirror with a small hand one properly. At first, Blaise couldn't make the image small enough to show what was going on with Morag- _please_, he prayed, _never let her find out about this until, well, she won't cry at me for it_- and still clear enough to be understood, but once he'd figured it out he'd written it down in his commonplace book and resolved to someday write the definitive work on spying spells.

Draco's present was coming along well. Normally, Blaise would have experimented to see if he could improve on the potion, but he thought that the written effects were quite what he wanted. And there was always that slight, very slight, chance that something would go wrong with one of him improvements. And Blaise wanted no mistakes.

At last it was time to add the hair. He stirred three times widdershins, dropped in the hair, and added a teaspoon of—he sniggered inwardly at the thought, as he would never actually snigger out loud, even in a disused girls' toilet—pansy oil. Then he brought the small cauldron down from a boil.

Now to bottle it and get it to the victim…

&&&&

The Slytherin Christmas tree was a marvel of refinement. While the Ravenclaw tree was covered with handmade ornaments- each student made one for their favorite novel- Slytherin's had shiny silver and green ribbons wound around the branches, and several tastefully placed, matte black drops. Many of the Slytherins had put presents underneath it, wrapped in black paper with dancing reindeer on it, or green paper with white snowflakes or, in Pansy's case, silver snakes with Santa hats. Someone had stuck a present wrapped in singing paper in the demure pile, but after a few days enough presents were put on top of it that the music was mostly drowned out.

Draco was over by the tree, fussing around with the presents. His mother had probably provided half the pile, Blaise decided. How pathetic; buying popularity. Especially when it was you mummy doing it for you. Pansy hung on Draco's arm, simpering at a small box wrapped in gold foil. Last year, Draco had got her something very like it, containing a thin gold band. Nobody in Slytherin really knew whether Draco and Pansy were actually in love with each other, (privately and to Theodore, Blaise couldn't think of two people who deserved each other more) whether they were simply drawn to the possibilities of the other's money and power, or whether Pansy wanted Draco's money and Draco thought Pansy would be a suitable trophy wife. Their relationship was the subject of several wagers throughout the House; Blaise was also unsure of whether Draco knew about them and deluded himself into thinking that he was "mysterious" or whether he was just clueless. For someone who was second in the entire class, Draco _could_ be remarkably clueless at times.

"Is that for me, Draco?" she asked fluttering her eyelashes. "You shouldn't have." She toyed with the rather ostentatious bracelets on her right wrist. One was a thick silver serpent, with large emeralds for eyes and thin slivers for scales; the other was a bulky silver chain with emeralds set in every other link. Though the jewelry would have been disgustingly _bourgeois_ with any colors, rubies and gold would have suited Pansy better; _her Slytherin pride must be warring with her pointless desire to be the most stunning girl in the room,_ thought Blaise.

"Oh," said Draco, casting an interested eye at the box. "Well, I didn't." Pansy looked distinctly put out: Draco's presents were very expensive and in much better taste than Pansy's.

As Pansy sulked, Draco checked the tag and noted that it was to himself. He nodded in satisfaction- as though his parents hadn't sent him enough presents already- and unwrapped it. A small, glass bottle nestled inside on a silk pillow. He uncorked the bottle and dabbed a little of the gold-colored liquid on his wrist. "It doesn't smell very nice, really—" Draco began, when Millicent sniffed the air. Her eyes glazed over and she dropped the just-unwrapped pair of hideous socks she was holding.

As she staggered over to Draco and fell soundly on top of him, Blaise smirked behind his book. Getting Millicent's hair had been difficult, but it was worth that and even the remote possibility of expulsion to see the expression on Draco and Pansy's faces. And perhaps, once they had recovered sufficient composure to realize who had done it and why, they would leave off insisting that plain Slytherins made better girlfriends than sweet Ravenclaws.


End file.
